INDIA AND THE EMPIRE 161 



the same importance in regard to any other market 

 in the British Empire, and that is the development 

 of Japan. Japan has entered fully into the econo- 

 mic methods of the West. The new Japanese tariff 

 shows all the leading features of that fiscal policy 

 which has been employed with such effect in the 

 development of the trade and resources of Germany 

 and of the United States and other Western 

 countries. But Japan enters this new field of 

 commercial statesmanship under conditions very 

 different from those of the West in regard to her 

 nearness to the Indian market, the quantity and 

 cheapness of the labour she can employ, and the 

 facility with which she can imitate the products 

 which have hitherto found favour in Far Eastern 

 markets and adapt her methods of production to 

 their needs. Competition in the Far East itself 

 for the Indian market is therefore certain to be of 

 a very formidable character, and if China follows 

 Japan in the adoption of Western economic 

 methods, the effect on the balance and adjustment 

 of Indian trade might be incalculably great. 



So far I have been stating facts which are acces- 

 sible to any student of contemporary economics 

 and I have refrained from drawing any inferences 

 from them whatsoever. But I have no wish to 

 shut my eyes to the irresistible inference which 

 they arouse in certain minds. The school of 

 thought which regards the days of Free Trade 

 as numbered would take my facts as clear evidence 

 that the duty of India, as part of the British Empire, 

 is to build up for itself a tariff wall which will 

 check those threatened diversions of our trade. 

 If Germany and the United States, they will say, 

 have already seized, and if Japan and China are 

 going to seize, upon an ever-increasing share in our 

 trade, is it not our obvious duty to readjust our 

 schedule of import customs in such a manner as 



